Four years ago I began my journey with Pure Barre and fell in love. To be honest, I actually hated my first few classes, but somehow a girlfriend convinced me to keep going. At the time my workout routine consisted of a daily yoga practice and I had a shoulder injury that kept recurring. I was in pain, felt exhausted, and was fighting a constant mental battle to be skinnier. My entire adult life I have always focused on wanting to become smaller and the perfect size zero. There were times when I became completely obsessed with my diet and this drive to lose weight. This obsession only caused my weight to yoyo and made me incredibly unhappy. After a year of attending Pure Barre this all began to change. I actually started putting on weight and the crazy thing was I started to like the way my body looked! I looked in the mirror and began to appreciate the fact I could see my muscle definition. Every month, I was becoming stronger and my yoga practice improved because Pure Barre was increasing my body’s strength. In addition, I was falling in love with the experience of attending Pure Barre.
At Pure Barre Bozeman I found a community of women who supported me, an environment that lifted my spirit daily, and teachers who pushed me beyond my goals to reach fitness levels I never thought were possible. Around year two I hit a plateau in my results. My drive to improve in class made me take a closer look at my diet and how I was fueling my body. I began experimenting with eating a Paleo diet after eating vegetarian for 4 years. I became more aware of the food I was putting in my body and how it helped increase my energy levels as well as my ability to recover after a long week of workouts. Through the combination of my commitment to Pure Barre and the changes I made in my diet, I began to find a lifestyle balance that was improving my life in so many ways. I am definitely not perfect… Sometimes I still step on the scale and find myself consumed by the desire to lose weight. However, the majority of the time I feel confident and stronger than ever before.
I wish I could say that after 4 years of doing Pure Barre it has gotten easier, but it has only become harder. The more you learn about the technique and the correct way to do the moves the more difficult they become. An old yoga teacher once told me that yoga is a life long practice because it allows us to practice different thinking patterns with the goal of positive results. In life when we fail and fall down this daily practice pushes us to get back up and keep going. Today, I have found a new practice with Pure Barre that has driven me to not only seek these same results, but to reach for even higher ones (only in cuter outfits). January 14th marked my 4 year anniversary with Pure Barre Bozeman and for the first time I can say I am comfortable with my size. Now when I look at myself I see a woman who is strong, a woman who can rock multiple Pure Barre classes in a row, and most importantly a woman who feels truly confident in her body.
